This post is part of Q/A series from our Day 1 (on 28th Jan 2018) DBA to Cloud DBA Live Training asked by trainees. These questions will help you to understand Cloud Concepts and also if you have any question related to Oracle Cloud or Cloud DBA then you can ask in the comments section.

If you are just starting out in Cloud then I highly recommend you to go through these first

We start the Live Training explaining all the Modules & Lessons covered in the workshop, One of the Module is OEM for Hybrid Cloud Management so the first question was from related to OEM

Q1: Hi, Is familiarity with OEM is a prerequisite for this course? Also how well we are placed by the end of this course for cloud certification?

A1: OEM stands for Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control (latest version as of Jan 2018) is 13c. OEM is used to manage On-Premise Databases, O.S. and other Oracle & No Oracle Products. You can also use OEM 13c to Manage Cloud Assets using Cloud Gateway Agent.

Knowledge of OEM 13c is not required for DBA to Cloud DBA Training. We cover OEM 13c Install, Configure and Managing Cloud Database using Cloud Agents in Module 10 including Step by Step Activity Guide for this task (For list of all the Activity Guides in this course check http://k21academy.com/cloud05 )

Q2: What is OMCS? (Note: In Cloud overview, we discussed Managed Cloud so this question is from topic around this)

Whereas, b) Oracle Mobile Cloud Service is another service in Cloud, more here

Whereas c) Oracle Managed, Cloud Service is service offered by Oracle to manage Cloud Service for Customers. More on this here andhere

Note: It is better to reach out to Oracle account or sales team with requirements so that they explain or pitch the correct product.

Q3: Live session schedule please, is it every Saturday & Sunday?

A3: Sessions are Every Saturday (only Saturday). Note: This schedule is subject to change based on conditions outside our control but we’ll notify over mail and also in WhatsApp group. There will be recording available in 72 Hours (If you can’t attend live Session)

OpenVPN to connect to K21 Academy Servers for Lift & Shift (Migration) & OEMNote: Step by Step Guide available on portal for this

VNC Viewer for GUI Access to K21 Academy Servers for Lift & Shift (Migration) & OEM Note: Step by Step Guide available on portal for this

Q5: Can we opt for practising on a dedicated machine after completing the course?A5: Yes, You can request machine for Practice like OEM 13c Setup or Backup Configuration or Lift & Shift whenever you are ready.

One of the topic we discussed Cloud Characteristics so next question is from Scale-Up/Scale-Down feature of Cloud

Q6: How frequently can I scale-up and scale down? Can it be daily.. based on peak hours of business hours I scale up and scale down during off-peak hoursA6: Yes you can scale-up/down as many times as possible however note following:

While the scaling operation is in progress, The database deployment is in Maintenance status and unavailable.

When scaling down a database deployment on Oracle Public Cloud Machine, do not scale down to the OC3 shape. Doing so can cause an out-of-memory condition and make the compute nodes of the deployment inaccessible.

When you scale up the storage for a database deployment on Database Cloud Service, the deployment is put into Maintenance status during the operation and it is restarted.

A compute node can have a maximum of ten storage volumes attached to it. Five of these ten are used when the database deployment is created, leaving you only five opportunities to scale up storage. Therefore, each scale-up operation you perform can dramatically affect the maximum size your database can grow to.

When adding storage to a database deployment that uses Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC), you should specify the same size as the other storage volume or volumes already in the Oracle ASM disk group you want to scale up: Data or Backup

Q7: Oracle Cloud can be accessed from Web Browser, Are all web browsers compatible?A7: IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari are supported for list of all supported devices and versions check here

Q8: Lower cost for Cloud is written everywhere.. can we do 1 complete comparison of on-premise and cloud?A8: As per Oracle, Cloud brings 2.1 times ROI, check more at https://go.oracle.com/LP=38395

Q9: Cloud (DBaaS) actually has virtual machines as hardware in the background? Is it correct understanding?A9: Yes, this is correct. When you deploy Database in PaaS as DBaaS, you get Database on Virtual Machine and Full Access to this Virtual Machine. Check more at http://k21academy.com/1z016013

Q10: Atul, have you ever migrated any of your on-premise large databases to VMs?A10: We migrate Oracle E-Business Suite Database quite regularly for our Customers from On-Premise to Cloud, check more on 10 Things you must consider when migrating EBS R12 including database to Oracle Cloud http://k21academy.com/ebscloud15

Q12: In PaaS, if I need to upgrade the SQL Plus, who will do it? SQL Plus version sometimes need an upgrade in long run?Q13: Who will upgrade the exe or rpms which needed on O/S update

A12 & 13: You as Cloud DBA (For list or Tasks performed by Cloud DBAs check http://k21academy.com/cloud12 ) use cloud tooling and available rdbms patches at regular intervals and apply from cli or cloud console.

Q14: What is RAC future in Cloud because Cloud provides a lot of redundancy options?A14: For Scalability & High Availability RAC (Real Application Cluster) is still relevant in Cloud. For RAC on Cloud, however, you as Cloud DBA need to different tools like RACCLI, more on raaccli here

Q15: For the lab, Can I use VM on my laptop or it should be a k21 dedicated machine in the cloud?A15: You can use your own VM on your laptop to test OEM 13c, Backup to Cloud or Lift & Shift. Contact our support team if you need any help in setting VM with all software. We use VirtualBox with Linux 6.5

Q16: Can we have a brief discussion of a normal day to day activities of a Cloud DBA?A16: We discussed this in Class with all above questions and many more. For list of tasks performed by Cloud DBA (but not limited to just these) refer to http://k21academy.com/cloud12

Q17: If I want to go through the video on K21 Academy Membership Portal, how much time will it take to go through videos?A17: K21Academy Membership Portal contains this course in 11 Modules and Each Module is divided into Lessons (4-10 Lessons per Modules). Each lesson is a video of bite-size chunks from 6-12 Minutes and these are fun to listen and to the point videos. If you have any further questions, jump on our weekly Live Interactive Sessions or Ask for Support.

Overall, it was a fantastic session and got very good feedback.

Stay tuned for next session next week where we’ll cover Oracle Cloud Offerings

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